


How It Is With Her

by SecondFromTheRight



Series: All We Do Is Hide Away [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, frank's pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-10 22:59:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12922041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondFromTheRight/pseuds/SecondFromTheRight
Summary: Follow up/companion piece toAll We Do Is Hide Away.Everything in their lives should tell themnow, you have to do it now because there won’t be a tomorrow. But somehow the time he spends with her allows him some kind of freedom he hasn’t felt since he enlisted, since Maria first got pregnant. It comforts him enough that he can just look, and think about what it would be like, thinks it’s okay because it will happen, and it’s enough. As long as she’s there, it’s enough. The press of time that he knows he should feel isn’t there. It’s the one thing Frank never expected to feel again, freedom of time. And it's the one thing he didn't think he'd want again, but now he does; he wants time.Frank thinks about how their 'after' is turning out, and meets Doris.





	How It Is With Her

It’s 6 weeks since he turned up again wondering who Ben Urich was that Karen asks him if he wants to come with her to see the man’s widow. He slowly nods when she asks him, thinks yeah, somehow that seems right, though he never truly expected it.

They haven’t kissed yet. Not on the lips, anyway. He’s kissed her other places. On the cheek, regularly. Along her jawline. He’s kissed her neck more than once when they hug – and she has kissed his. Her hands, her palms, her forehead, her shoulder. She kisses the top of his back sometimes, across his shoulder blades. But they haven’t kissed yet. He wants to, feels a desperate want for it that tests his discipline pretty often, but he doesn’t feel an absolute need for it and it’s that that let’s Frank just enjoy what he has with her. He should know better, so should she. Everything in their lives should tell them _now, you have to do it now because there won’t be a tomorrow_. But somehow the time he spends with her allows him some kind of freedom he hasn’t felt since he enlisted, since Maria first got pregnant. It comforts him enough that he can just look, and think about what it would be like, thinks it’s okay because it will happen, and it’s enough. As long as she’s there, it’s enough. The press of time that he knows he should feel isn’t there. It’s the one thing Frank never expected to feel again, freedom of time. And it's the one thing he didn't think he'd want again, but now he does; he wants time.

He enjoys wanting it, enjoys feeling it. Enjoys the tension he can feel, enjoys watching her breathing change and the back and forth game that has nothing to do with being a target, enjoys watching her react to him, enjoys reacting himself. Feels like a fucking sap for it but fuck, he enjoys that too.

And he doesn’t know what she looks like naked, but he feels like her knows her body enough by touch that he almost does. They hug a lot. Frank totally indulges in it. That feeling of peace is still there. At first he thought it would go away now that he was back in her life permanently, but it never leaves, it’s still there every time she fits herself against his body. He still breathes her in like it’s a one-off each time. And she still falls asleep in front of him – though he falls asleep now too, and sometimes it’s still on the couch but usually it’s in her bed. He sleeps, actually sleeps. And despite whatever they are or are not, she’s happy to curl up against him in her bed – sometimes in her sweats, sometimes in just a t-shirt that tests Frank even more, and he’ll hold her back, tight. He thought he would worry that he might hurt her but he doesn’t, he doesn’t hold back. He doesn’t know what it feels like to be inside her, or what she looks like when she comes – though he thinks about both – but he does know how she feels against him. He knows how her ass feels pressed against his crotch, how her breasts sit without a bra. He knows her out of the shower with her hair wet and against her skin. She likes touching his chest, her hand often travelling up his t-shirt to just feel him. Sometimes he thinks she’s feeling his heart. Their bare feet tangle together most nights. She takes his bloody shirt off and he takes papers out of her hands when she’s working too hard and needs a break. They’re physical and they’re intimate, despite the lack of sex.

But life with Karen makes Frank realise he does miss sex. He thinks about it, wants it, and he jacks off in her shower, and lying in her bed sometimes. He enjoys being hard again. He isn’t sure how Karen feels about what they are, and what they’re not. And he isn’t sure what will be the thing that breaks the tension and moves them forward, but he knows it’s coming and he enjoys the build to it. Frank doesn’t remember the last time he built towards something that wasn’t a mission, wasn’t killing. He figures they should probably talk about it but he’s still scared of some things and Karen not wanting him, Karen rejecting what they have, scares him as much as anything does. He’ll wait.

She doesn’t like breakfast in bed, he’s learned that. Coffee, maybe, but once she’s awake she’s awake and up. She leaves the door open when she showers, Frank knows her silhouette. Karen doesn’t relax often, not like other people do. She rarely stops. And Frank gets that, connects with it like he does so many other parts of her.

She has less nightmares than him, but he has less nightmares the more nights he spends with her. But when she wakes up panicked and looking around, he gets that too. Sometimes it's about Fisk, sometimes it's about her brother, and sometimes it's about Matthew Murdock. A couple of times he's dreamed he watches Wilson Fisk kill her. Once he dreamed he turned up at her door to kill her, sent by Fisk. After those he presses his lips to her skin, murmurs her name against her until he's sure she's really there.

There still isn’t a picture of him, or of them. But he wants one. He wants one of her. He hasn’t asked because he’s still The Punisher. He may not have a mission target list and he doesn't leave the city and maybe he doesn’t kill every single fucker he stops doing whatever shit they’re doing, hearing Karen in his ear that he doesn’t have to. There’s a freedom in that too. Because he did have to before. There was no middle ground. It just was. War. There’s no middle ground in war. Somehow there’s middle ground now, there’s options, because Karen thinks there is. He still kills and sometimes she frowns at him for it, sad at some loss of life, but sometimes she just nods too. He hears “Frank Castle killed murderers and drug dealers.“ in those moments. He wonders if she realises she described Grotto that time.

The first time he took his boots off in her place was when he realised he really was staying here. Not just that he was planning to, or choosing to, but that was happening – had happened.

He buys her hyacinths. His shit is here. Clothes, weapons, food, books, toothbrush, fully-stocked first aid kit. Everything he needs and then some, it’s here but somehow he feels his presence through those fucking flowers more than anything. Their fragrance is strong; you can’t not know they’re there. It’s like some kind of mark he’s leaving. He’s bought her roses sometimes too, just because – she may like hyacinths but roses have become something of _them_ that he doesn’t want to let go of. She smiles bright every time, looks at him under her lashes like somehow she’s still surprised he’s brought her flowers. The rose plant is still alive, though never on the windowsill. She has his number instead now. One burner and another, under Pete Castiglione. She only calls him Pete when she’s making fun of him. He’s fine with that. Once when she was angry and as momentarily spiteful as Karen Page could be; he's fine with that too, thinks he's become someone who can tear her apart and like the asshole he is, he cherishes it like he does the rest of how they are, what they've become.

He’s grown his hair out again, and his beard. It’s easier to be in her life this way, to not have to wear a hoodie and cap for every single thing he does, to not have to stay inside during the day. He doesn’t want that for her. There hasn't been a public Frank Castle sighting since Lewis Wilson and he plans to keep it that way. She plays with his hair, strokes his bread, still calling him a hipster as she smiles. One time she’d call him the Mr Hipster Punisher before she burst out laughing, more than once she’d called him _her_ hipster and it’s always with happy eyes so he doesn’t give a fuck. Won’t admit he likes it, will grumble sometimes just for the fun of it.

She works, a lot. She’ll talk to him about it, trying to work through her thinking through him and it’s like he’s found a new fucking hobby with how much he likes it. He buzzes with it. Likes talking to her about shit that’s happening, that she thinks is worth uncovering. Likes following her mind, likes it better when his mind ends up the same place as hers and they figure it out together. He less likes accompanying her to meetings with sources he doesn’t trust, especially when she insists he has to watch from a distance and can’t be there with because "he’ll scare her source away."

Turk shows up one day in something she's working on and Frank finds out Karen actually knows the asshole. That helps him not kill every lowlife he comes across, figuring he made the right choice not killing the dealer last time; he could have killed another person Karen had tried to save. But all of it helps him keep his mind active. He doesn’t hate every day. He's happy to wake up most days, happy to be alive. That's another thing he didn't expect to feel again, but he does feel it.

He’ll pick her up from work sometimes. Well, usually from the street because Ellison might be cool with him but they doubt no one at a paper would recognise exactly who he is. He gets to go up sometimes too, because she works so much later than most of the others and he can go in when they’ve all gone. He looks around at her office, at Ben’s office. She’d handed him the picture of the Urichs. He’d still never googled Ben, only wanting to know him through Karen. So the picture was the first time he sees what the guy looked like, and looked like with his wife. Happy, in love, committed, a paring. He’s found himself wondering again what Ben would think of him and his place in Karen’s life, remembers Ellison proclaiming Ben would have been involved the whole time. He’s read some of Ben’s old articles – Karen shows him them, proudly and with a self-criticism that believes she can’t be as good as him but if she can just be good enough to make him proud, enough that he wouldn't regret his investment in her. Frank tells her she’s the best the paper has, the only shit he reads.

Curtis doesn’t know about Karen, but he knows Frank is different. Frank isn’t sure why he hasn’t told him. He thinks it might be because Curtis knew Maria. It’s not guilt, or shame. Frank knows he’s not betraying his wife with Karen. Karen talks about her, asks about her, lets him talk about her. Karen never dismisses his family, never lets him forget them. And he’s accepted that though he never wanted someone other than his wife, he wants Karen Page. In every way. He wants to go down on her, he wants to fuck her, he wants to laugh with her and he wants to bring her flowers. He wants to fall asleep with her, he wants to take on Hells Kitchen’s problems with her. In his darker moments he wonders if he wants to kill with her. He does half of these things already and the only guilt he feels is when he thinks Maria and the kids would have really liked Karen, thinks about Maria and Karen smiling together, thinks about Karen reading Alice in Wonderland to his baby girl - then he feels guilt, because that's selfish and fucked up and is a world that cannot and should not exist. But with Curtis – it's fear. Frank is terrified that part of his life acknowledging the part with Karen will somehow risk her. Like, if he can keep her safe – and he has to keep her safe – anything from that time, from then, that fucked up everything else – it cannot be allowed to touch Karen Page. It's what took everything away from him before and it cannot happen again, he won't allow it. It's why he never told Curtis that he had a reporter that might still care about him, someone else that knew he was alive. Because he didn't want her anywhere near the life that took his family away. It isn’t fair, not to Curtis who Frank knows has his back, and it isn’t fair to Karen who must think she’s been hidden. But it’s something he hasn’t managed to tackle yet.

His friend isn’t an idiot. Frank’s sure he thinks he’s with someone, but then he also wonders if the idea of Frank being with someone else is so unbelievable that maybe it doesn't occur to him as a possibility. Frank finds it unbelievable too sometimes. He didn’t think it would happen, didn’t think it could happen. And he wasn’t looking for it. But once she pushed her way into his life, over that damn red line, she’s burrowed inside of him. And somehow, though he doesn’t deserve it, he has her too.

He’s only seen David twice but the hacker knows. He'd asked how "Miss Page" was and then smirked at him like the asshole he is. Frank looked for cameras in Karen's apartment that night, finding nothing. Frank supposes it’s because David had seen Frank responding to Karen, so he can see it when it’s there again, as opposed to Curtis who’s clueless.

But mostly it’s just the two of them. And Frank likes it that way. It’s different to what he knew as family life, always so busy and loud. He didn’t think he could find fulfillment in a twosome where it’s quiet in comparison, where it’s all grown up, but somehow it’s what he’s found. He remembers telling Red that they didn’t get to pick the things that fix them, that make them whole, that give them purpose. Frank wasn’t expecting Karen, and for her sake, he isn’t sure he would have chosen her, but it’s what she’s become. She helps make him as whole again as he can be - and with something else, that he'd never had. He’s been part of a unit, part of a team his whole adult life in some way, in the Marines and with wife and kids, but the pairing of him and Karen has an equality to it that’s new to him. He and Maria never really got a chance to be just the two of them, and he was always still a leader with his men – and didn’t like to see most of them when he was back in his home life. Maria would take the bulk of the responsibility of taking care of the kids because he was away so much, and he’d overcompensate when he was back, trying to help her, trying to show his appreciation for what she did, to make up for what he had missed while gone. With Karen it’s a constant team. And he thinks he might be good at it. His other example of a partnership was with David, which though worked well in the end and they showed up for the other, that partnership was always hitting roadblocks. There isn’t that problem with Karen. Frank feels like a man again in Karen’s company. Not through brutality, and not through sex, but taking care of her, making her smile, challenging her, turning up period. He remembers her telling him everyone was lonely and he realises in some way he's been lonely his whole life - not unhappy, but by himself in some sense - and he isn't anymore. He meets her expectations. He thinks it’s mostly because she knows him so well, learned the worst of him first and accepts him as he is because she’s never known him as otherwise. Frank loved being a father, wouldn't change that for anything in the world - nothing was more precious to him. But when he’s at his most honest, or his most self-hating, he’ll look at Karen and think he may be better at being with her. It comes easier. There's a innate ease of being with her, it comes naturally, he doesn't have to think and just is with her. He doesn’t know what that makes him but he only hopes it doesn’t tarnish her.

There’s few things that one of them takes the control of so much more than the other. He’s a better cook. He realised that pretty early on. But mostly they trade off in a way that makes Frank feel as cherished as much as he cherishes, feel like he contributes something. When the quiet starts to seep uncomfortably into his mind like it’s about to blanket everything else, Karen is suddenly there with coffee, or with realisation of an article she’s working on. Sometimes she just brushes him and smiles at him, takes him out of it again. When he feels restless and his trigger finger starts, he touches her. The first time he did that he felt like a worthless piece of shit tainting her. To involve in her that - what did that make him, how could he do that. But she’d held his hand, played with his fingers, acknowledged what was happening and went ahead and replaced it with herself anyway. He wants to kiss her often but then he’d wanted to be a part of her. He realised she'd been involved with that side of things for so long already. When he's pissed she's right there in his face, challenging him right back like she always has.

They hold hands too, sometimes. He thinks about Sarah talking about the other half of life, of holding hands again. Holding Karen’s hand screams ‘after’ to Frank, and he’s happy with it. He wonders if it was the ‘after’ Karen envisioned for him when she showed him her heart at the waterfront that night. But she seems happy, she seems fulfilled, with him, with her work. And Frank doesn’t know how else to count success these days other than by Karen’s smiles and Karen’s thoughtful frowns as she bites at her lip.

Meeting Doris makes him rethink the Curtis thing. The woman is so welcoming of him, beams bright when she sees Karen brought someone.

“Oh my!” she announces, making Karen laugh as she introduces them. He’s Pete today, but that’s okay.

“Ma’am.” He nods at her with a smile.

“And manners, too!” the older woman praises. She’s frail, but somehow full of life. Outwardly shining. Then he realises where she’s really strong because he has something in common with this woman – something other than adoring the blonde in the room with them. Her spouse was killed, violently. But somehow she went on, in a way he couldn’t. He has a new appreciation for Sarah, because the same happened for her – she witnessed it, but she carried on. She struggled, but she still got up and went to work every day, still maintained life. Its’ one of those moments where Frank remembers that who he is isn’t just because he lost his family, it’s not even how he lost them – it’s just who he is, who he became on one too many tours away from home.

“It's important to be polite.” He smiles at her.

“Where you been hiding him? Look at you two, this isn’t new.” Oh and she’s observant.

“We’re still…we’re still figuring it out.” Karen says as she looks at him, a little unsure.

“Ah-huh,” she eyes them. “Well, don’t wait too long.”

“Okay,” Karen says indulgently. “How are you?” Karen asks Doris as she hands her the paper and goes about changing the flowers. She does it with practice, something she’s used to.

“Right as rain.” She says sarcastically. Karen stops and tilts her head at her until Doris sighs a little. “I’m fine, child. Ben’s still taking care of me.” She smiles with tearful eyes and Karen matches her, nodding as she presses her lips together. “Anyway, is Mitchell still working his tail off as one of the good ones or as he gone back to his asshole-self?” Franks cracks a vocal laugh that has Doris chuckling along with him. “Oh, you know Mitchell Ellison with that reaction.” Doris realises.

“Uh, yes, ma’am, I certainly do.” He tells her brightly, amused.

“Be nice.” Karen chastises both of them.

“Does he deserve it?” Doris challenges dead serious.

“He does.” Karen tells her kindly.

 

Karen’s away speaking to the nurse, so Frank asks Doris if she can get her anything. She declines and looks at the paper in her hands, touching the material with something like love. Frank remembers seeing her do that the first time he ever saw her, after he’d followed Karen here. He gets it now, remembers how often he’d thumb the picture of his family, remembers how he’d thumb over Karen’s name on her articles - how he still does.

“I’m sorry about your husband.” He tells her.

“Did you know Ben?” She asks still focusing on the paper.

“No, I, uh, I’m afraid I didn’t have the honour, but Karen talks about him.”

“He was proud of her, impressed by her.” The older woman says quietly before she sighs and Frank feels her loss, the what ifs, in that sigh. “Military?” she asks after a moment as she looks up at him.

“Yes, ma’am.” Frank feels himself being appraised in a way he’s not used to.

“Pete, was it?” is her next question. Frank nods. She finally looks away, back to the Bulletin in her lap.

“My Ben was a wonderful reporter. To get to the heart of a story, find out the truth, there was no one better,” she pauses with intention that Frank respects, he’s pretty sure he knows what’s coming. “Karen’s allowing you a second chance. Do you want it?”

“I want her to be happy.”

“Do you want to be the one to make her happy?” She looks at him with raised eyebrows, her head tilted down as she tries to figure him out.

“Yes,” he breathes out, looking down at what the next part of what he's going to say could cost him. “But I don’t think I should. There’s…she deserves better than me.”

“That girl will make up her own mind. That’s what she deserves.” Doris tells him surely, leaving no room for argument. That's fine though, because Frank agrees with her.

“That’s why I’m here.” Frank nods, bobbing his head before he looks away again.

 

“You take care of her.” Doris warns charmingly, like everything else she does.

“Will do, ma’am.” Frank assures.

“And you,” Doris takes both of Karen’s cheeks in her hands as Karen leans over to hug her goodbye. “Oh, my child.” She adds with intensity as she stares at Karen with love. Karen bows her head, hiding her emotion and Doris takes the chance to kiss her temple. Frank watches while turned away, trying to be respectful.

 

Frank leaves Doris' room feeling a need to kill Wilson Fisk. To break him apart. Never has Frank felt so appropriately named because he does want to Punish Fisk for what he’s done to Doris Urich, to Ben Urich, to Karen Page.

“Stop.” Karen says as she grabs for his hand. He almost physically stills but Karen keeps walking through the hospital halls, so he does too.

“What?”

“I know what you’re thinking. Unless you’re planning on going back to prison, it’s not happening right now.” She tells him with a hushed whisper as she keeps her face friendly to the others they pass. Frank doesn’t bother, is happy too look angry. He hears her 'right now' though, is grateful that she knows he will do it at some point, doesn't even argue against him doing it.

“I will kill him.”

“Not now, Frank.” She shuts down. When they get outside she questions what he thought she might. "She knows who you are, doesn’t she?” she asks with tension, worry.

“She really does,” he says casually, trying to calm Karen down. “Not dim, that one.” He smirks good-naturedly. Doris Urich is an impressive woman.

“Oh god, Frank, I’m sorry. This was a stupid idea. I – “

“Hey, Karen,” Frank stops them both, taking hold of Karen’s upper arms as he turns her towards him. “It’s okay. I didn’t get the impression she was planning a meeting with the gals of the ward to gossip that The Punisher was in her room.” He tries for humour again. Karen is worked up and scared and he wants to take it away.

“I shouldn’t have risked it.” She shakes her head.

“It’s okay.”

“I shouldn’t have risked you.” She carries on like he didn’t even say anything.

“Hey, Karen Page, you look at me.” Frank cups her cheek, his fingers sliding into her hair. He stares at her, keeps her looking at him. They both lean in, their foreheads meeting. Frank finds himself automatically closing his eyes, he can’t help it. He’s out in the open in public and still, he can’t not just be in this moment with her.

“Frank.” She says on in inhale of breath, as she does sometimes. She says his name a lot, like it alone means something, or like it can mean a whole bunch of things. It seems to stable her as much as it does him. Frank is sure she'll say it when he has her coming undone under him too.

"I'm right here." he tells her. That's something he says fairly often too, has since that first night he stayed. He thinks it might have become their version of an exchange of 'I love you'. It's commitment, reaffirmation. It seems to help. She has this fear of losing him that he doesn't know how else to fix other than to tell her that he's here. He worries about losing her too, but he knows that it can't stop them from trying - he's learned that from her. They pull away and he stares at her lips, brushes his thumb across them. “Come on, let’s go home.”

 

He takes her to meet Curtis the next day. He thinks about telling Curtis about her first, but Frank realises he wants to see Curtis’ full reaction to finding out about Karen Page and his relationship with her.

**Author's Note:**

> <https://secondfromtheright.tumblr.com/>


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